Thor: I think trolls should be hardworking blacksmiths, toiling away underground forging magical weapons. Hades: No! Trolls should be vile monsters, living under bridges and harassing goats! Pig: You're both wrong! Trolls should be tiny wrinkled men with big poofy hair that are collected by old women!

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Elves have Pointy Ears and live for a very long time out in the magical forest. Dwarves live underground, dig up jewels, and are short and like to grow long beards. Merpeople live underwater, have sea-creature features, and sing. And Trolls...

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All right, let's admit it. Trolls are diverse. It's not even a matter of everyone wanting them to be different; there are so many clashing ideas of trolls in mythology itself that it's hard to decide what they are. Pretty much the only standard thing about trolls is that they are ugly- or at least Ugly Cute. So, really, you can't blame modern creators for putting their own spin on trolls. If there is any consistency, it is that the less cute the troll, the meaner the troll, but even that tends to be subverted.

Quite a few depictions of Trolls have them as being vulnerable to fire. Some fictional interpretations give them ridiculously fast regenerative powers, such that they can heal themselves even as you're cutting them down making them frighteningly invincible. In these interpretations, fire is the only way to prevent their injuries from healing and thus the only way to defeat them. Others have them harmed or petrified by sunlight.

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Many of the differences stem from language barriers. When translating a myth from another culture, it was common habit for a previously unknown creature to be stamped as a troll. The names Ogre, Giant, and Troll were also interchangeable for many storytellers, resulting in further confusion.

Even within Scandinavian folklore trolls are extremely diverse, and range from magical mischievous goblins to huge dumb giants who roamed the forest and could sniff out a Christian man's blood. Part of this comes from the isolated nature of Scandinavian communities; localized versions of monsters destroying crops and eating your porridge appeared. The word troll in Norse languages, similar to trolleri/trylleri which means magic, is basically a blanket term for any creature that's strange, unusual, poorly understood, seemingly supernatural or vaguely inhuman, similar to the Japanese concept of youkai.

One of the friendlier youkai that appears in Dororo is called a troll, at least in the English version. Here it's a green-skinned humanoid with a swollen head that points the way to buried treasure.

In Saint Seiya, one of Hades' Specters is Troll Ivan. His armor represents the troll as a humanoid being with pointy ears, claws and a tail.

Trolls in Slayers (likely based on the ones in Dungeons & Dragons) are rather primal creatures, around twice the height of the average human and come in a large array of colors. They posses an incredible Healing Factor that allows them to recover lost limbs in a matter of seconds. Some people are capable of making deals with them, but most avoid them; a rather good idea, seeing as they go in a ravenous frenzy of pillaging and destruction the second Shabranigdu is unleashed into the world, which happens quite often, it would seem. A minor character is part troll and part werewolf — he has human-level intelligence and apparently stronger regenerative abilities than a normal troll. Obviously a Munchkin...

In Toriko there's a creature called Troll Kong, a massive four-armed gorilla known for being dangerous, and the Troll Cheese, an incredibly stinky but delicious cheese. Later on, Taste Hermit Kaka reveals that the Nitro are actually a type of Troll, in this case being the incarnation of Gourmet Cells and appetite. Though we are told that there are several types of trolls, most of them looking like the typical portrayal, Nitro themselves do not look the part, being furry humanoid lizards.

Trolls in Sukasuka are almost indistinguishable from normal humans and are usually pretty attractive by human standards as well. However, their behavior was anything but human, with many unfortunate travelers being lured into spending the night at the home of an attractive stranger only to be devoured by their host. They stopped this practice after humanity went extinct and most trolls now focus on catering to guests rather than eating them. Still, this doesnt stop Nygglatho from expressing a desire to eat certain characters. The main character, Willem, is a frequent target of her affection given that hes the last living human and therefore a rare delicacy in her eyes.

Astro City: "The trolls of Glittertind" are shown to be one of the factions that rise up to repel the Enelsian invaders. The trolls essentially look like large (in the 15 ft-range) big-nosed and coarse-featured humans who dress in stereotypical 19th-century Norwegian clothes and are strong enough to bodily hurl alien tanks into the ocean.

At the climax of the graphic novel Foiled, this is revealed to be Avery's true form.

Gold Digger Trolls are green-skinned tall and strong humanoids who heal fast and grow larger and stronger with age. Young ones of both sexes are often quite attractive. They've got something of a reputation as being less civilized, but that's largely because of prolonged wars with the elves that wrecked a lot of their old civilization; there are plenty of smart trolls including martial artists and archmages and as a species they come off no worse than the other humanoids. They have a grudge against elves, but that goes both ways and isn't universal. There's some evidence trolls and elves are even distant relatives.

The trolls of Lanfeust are 7-8 feet tall fur-covered humanoids that live in their own villages. They eat anything that comes their way, can survive just about anything you throw at them, and smash first, ask questions very rarely.

At least two different kinds of trolls have appeared in the Marvel Universe. The first are Asgardian trolls, exemplified by Thor-villains Ullik and Geirrodur. Asgardian trolls very much resemble the Scandinavian trolls mentioned below, but are superhumanly strong — Ullik is on par with Thor, for example. The second kind were a group of myriad-seeming humanoid creatures of various colors who, among other things, hunted a young mutant for his ability to transmute elements; this group has had two story appearances to date spanning four comics.

A third "troll" type exists, but he is an alien, not a mythical creature. Pip Gofern (aka Pip the Troll) is minor royalty of the Laxadazian race, and more resembles a short, hornless, potbellied satyr than a troll - including in his appetites. Laxadazian trolls aren't a species, however. Normally, Laxadazians are more standard humanoid in appearance. Trollism is a side-effect of abusing a particular mind-altering alcoholic beverage, although once triggered, the change is permanent.

One-time Thunderbolts member Troll is half-Asgardian, half-Asgardian troll, and looks like a teenage human girl with Wild Hair.

Finnish comic book Ontot Kukkulat ("Hollow Hills") features trolls who used to be Neanderthals until their Eldritch Abomination god transformed them to save them as a species. They are seven-foot tall humanoids with jet-black skin, wild mane and wolf-like jaws and claws. They can use illusions to appear like humans or anything else they want, or even turn invisible, but any reflection or shadow reveals their true form. They are practically immortal unless killed, in which case they dissolve into crude oil ("black blood of Mother Earth"). They have a fairly civilized society in danger of being wiped out by modern humanity, but they have fair helpings of Blue and Orange Morality, for example being obliged to ritually mutilate and eat all humans who end up in their underground homes.

Poison Elves trolls are like taller, uglier elves with horns and the ability to reproduce by bleeding. In the case of Dark Trolls they are also 15 feet tall. They were created to destroy all life. Elves were made from trolls with the evil burned off by mystic flames to make a counter force.

In Golden AgeCaptain Marvel Jr. comics, trolls were a race of cute, tiny magical people. The guys were just funny-looking, but the girl, Ny-O, was very pretty, albeit having a head the size of a bobble-head doll relative to her body.

Sojourn features Trolls who look more than a little like the Uruk-Hai from The Lord of the Rings films, being human-height but bulky, green- or brown-skinned, with glowing green eyes and often with massive horns. They were first an Always Chaotic Evil mook army, and eventually became a Proud Warrior Race who were more attuned to nature than humans.

In Dilbert, trolls are human-sized creatures who work in the accounting department, which for some reason resembles a castle dungeon. It's stated several times that the trolls were once humans who slowly mutated. This partially happened to Dilbert once.

One series of FoxTrot has Paige creating a fairy tale-themed comic strip of her own. In one strip, the hero encounters a troll tied to a tree that looks like her brother Jason with goat legs and fangs. The hero wonders if he should free the creature or leave it tied up, knowing that a boar would eventually come along and kill it. When the actual Jason insults Paige in the last panel, she asks him if he knows whether or not "boar whistles" are a thing.

In Soria Moria Castle, they have three, or six, or nine heads, own swords and magic potions because the swords are too heavy for anyone to lift without the potion, and live in castles with no one in the lands about except the princesses they hold captive.

Fan Works

Like Harry Potter, in Alexandra Quick, Trolls are none too possessed of smarts, making them ideal for dull, monotonous work. Hence Wizarding America employs them in tollbooths for the Automagicka.

A Future of Friendship, A History of Hate: The second challenge Twilight has to pass in order to rescue her friends from Ruinate is a bridge guarded by Craggle, a troll made out of rock — specifically, a mineral that blocks magic (keeping her from just teleporting past him). He's rather dimwitted, but also seems to have an honor code, as he not only gives her a fair chance to get past him, but when she saves him falling to his death upon his defeat, he not only lets her pass, but saves her from a pack of shalehounds.

In Under The Northern Lights, Tarandroland is home to trolls called Stalu (after a Sami myth in real life). They are huge, misshapen cervines who live deep in forests and use forest lakes for gardens. They are infamous for eating reindeer. They are actually moose, driven to hiding after the genocidal efforts of the reindeer. While they might be hostile in self-defense, they most certainly don't eat people.

The Freeport Venture: In Freeport Venture: Come and See, Heritor Azurite's palace is guarded by enormous ice trolls. Going by the description, they resemble fairly typical mythological trolls, with shaggy hair and thick fat to ward off the cold.

The trolls in Frozen are small, have rock bodies, and are very friendly to people going as far as to use their magic to help them. They, however actually like trolling(Pun intended) when they try to get Kristoff and Anna married the first time they see them together.

Would you believe that "Totoro", in My Neighbor Totoro, is actually a mispronunciation of troll? Totoro is the leader of a family of friendly forest monsters, and he looks like a big, furry cat-owl-rabbit thing.

In the Norwegian dub, the word "ogre" is replaced with the word "troll". Apart from being green and lacking a tail, Shrek looks like the Scandinavian idea of a troll, anyway.

Actually Trolls or "Huldrefolk" as they were actually called, are usually beautiful but are set apart from humans by their long tails. The common 'troll' appearance and description was actually the Jotnar who turn to stone when exposed to sunlight, so they typically live in caves in mountains, which they only leave after sunset.

In the Swedish dub (a closely related language), Shrek is a "swamp troll".

In the fourth movie, a troll is seen briefly, being mistaken for Shrek. They're slightly taller and bulkier than ogres. Or at least, that particular one was anyway. This is interesting because the tie-in video games had already brought in trolls as a type of enemy. Of course, they looked completely different.

A Troll in Central Park had a friendly troll who was tiny with big ears, a tail that ends in a tuft of fur, and a literal "Green Thumb" that could make plants grow. He's the only troll that looked and acted like this in the movie though, and all the other trolls are ugly human-sized flower-hating monsters with warts, large thick tails, and a thumb that turns objects into stone.

The troll in Cat's Eye is a vicious, small creature who emerges out of children's bedroom walls to kill them by stealing their breath. While intelligent, it can't talk, but does have humanlike clothing and a small knife for defense.

In Ernest Scared Stupid, Ernest faces off against a troll named Trantor who his ancestor Phineas Worrell sealed under a great oak tree long ago. Trantor was big and ugly and liked to go after children, who he turned into little wooden dolls which gave him his power and who could use the voice of anyone he turned into a doll. He could only be stopped by "the heart of a child and a mother's care," which turned out to be unconditional love and... milk.

In Hellboy II: The Golden Army, creatures of every shape and size are seen at the Troll Market. At least some of them aren't trolls, but the one creature explicitly identified as a troll was spindly-limbed and hairless, casting a glamour to make her look like an old human woman. She also eats cats (which our cat-loving half-demon protagonist takes some serious issue with) and is terrified of canaries.

The Troll "series" of films.

Troll: The troll in this movie is the villain of the film. It's a small, ugly, hairy creature that used to be an elf. He turns people into mythological creatures and causes other mischief.

The trolls in the infamous Troll 2 aren't trolls at all, but goblins. There are no trolls whatsoever in the movie, and it has nothing to do with the original.

As if to prove a point or something, there are two different films called Troll 3 and a Troll 4, and not a one of the sequels has anything to do with the original Troll film. Truly, All Trolls are different.

The Norwegian film The Troll Hunter shows off this trope like a peacock displaying his feathers. Let's see, you've got a very large three-headed forest troll, a big aquatic brutish troll that lives under a bridge and has a taste for small woolly hoofed mammals, a whole pack of large furry cave trolls, and a colossal mountain troll who looks like what would happen if Clover was romantically involved with Gaius. All of them react badly to sunlight (or, more specifically, UV radiation) and can smell Christians.

The Lord of the Rings: Cave trolls are about 12 feet tall, with thick, doughy physiques and brutish faces with widely set eyes and nostril slits for noses. They are extremely stupid and violent. The cave troll fought by the Fellowship in Moria has a club chained to a collar around its neck, implying that it might otherwise lose the weapon. Return of the King, however, features trolls wearing armor and wielding swords.

Literature

In the Age of Fire series, trolls are large, bulbous creatures that walk more on their hands than their feet, have sensory nodes instead of heads, and both eat and excrete from the same orifice. Oh, and it's implied that they're aliens brought along by an Ancient Astronaut.

And then there's the hybrid creatures created in the last book by Infamnia and Rayg breeding regular trolls for decades on meals of dragon blood and flesh, giving them dragon attributes, like wings and horns.

Trolls in Eoin Colfer's Artemis Fowl series are mindless subterranean predators with retractable talons, venomous tusks, dreadlocks, and horns. And they are big.

A few trolls appear in Brian Froud's books, such as Faeries. He mentions that the friendly, furry species of troll is sometimes called a "Trow" (the Shetland word for trolls) - right after explaining that human names for the various kinds of Faery creatures are arbitrary. Indeed, there doesn't seem to be a set "rule" for what creature gets to be called a troll or a goblin or so on.

Tanngnost in Brom's The Child Thief resembles a huge satyr and is apparently the Only Sane Man in Avalon. Although not called a troll, the short, squat, neanderthallic Moss Man who raises Peter and plays the role of Sink-or-Swim Mentor also fits.

In Sarah Monette and Elizabeth Bear's A Companion To Wolves, trolls fit into the "big ogrish" type physically. They can also move through rock and earth as easily as humans do through water and have a hivelike setup with a queen as the only fertile female, sterile female worker/soldiers and males whose only function is to impregnate the queen.

Trolls on the Discworld are made of rock, with silicon brains and diamond teeth. This helps explain their natural rivalry with dwarfs: if you're a race made up entirely of miners, and you see a nice sleepy rock with diamonds in it, you're going to take a swing, right? Terry Pratchett actually uses the silicon brains to explain the "stone in sunlight" element listed above: as the temperature rises, a troll's brain can't work so well, so they practically go comatose in daylight in some regions. The opposite is also true in that trolls get smarter in cold weather; this is taken to its natural conclusion when the troll Detritus nearly comes up with a Grand Unified Theory when stuck in a magic meat locker. Trolls also act as a version of computer-driven robots — they can only properly count in binary, have thought processes running on silicon brain-chips, and can overheat, causing them to shut down.

The book Thud! introduced Mr. Shine. Other trolls say of him, "Mr Shine, him diamond," which is true; Mr. Shine is a rare troll composed entirely of diamond. Since diamond trolls can regulate their body temperature by reflecting heat, Mr. Shine's brain works far better than regular trolls', even in high temperatures. As a diamond troll, Mr. Shine is the rightful king of the trolls, but isn't interested in ruling; rather he invests his energies into his efforts to bring about peace between trolls and dwarfs.

Other gemstone trolls also exist, and their composition may likewise entail high status among their kind. In Snuff, the viceroy of Mr. Shine, now the new Diamond King, is of black ruby.

There's also the Gargoyles, which seem to be some sort of city-adapted troll, though a variant that's recently adapted to eat organic food such as pigeons. Earlier generations of gargoyles had to live off what they could filter-feed from the water in the gutters, which is why they'd spout water.

The Colour of Magic features a sea-troll, which Rincewind expects to be some kind of tentacled monster and turns out to be a humanoid figure made entirely out of water, with no visible means of support. Sea trolls aren't native to the Disc, but to a world called Bathys. Tethys ended up on the Disc after falling of Bathys's edge.

Yeti and gnolls have both been described as kinds of trolls. Yeti are trolls that have grown a thick layer of silicon "fur" to keep warm (i.e., glass fibre insulation material)note Cold is good for trolls, but too much of it can still kill them. and gnolls are made of soil rather than rock.

Trolls in Jim Butcher's Dresdenverse are apparently haggish, mostly stupid creatures that haunt bridges in dark corners and apparently have dominion over "naughty children" according to the prequel short story Restoration of Faith. Also, when a troll is mortally wounded, its skin collapses and a veritable army of ant-sized trolls spill out, which then apparently need quite some time to grow up back into a full-sized troll and the majority of which will be killed off by other natural and supernatural predators, keeping the troll population from growing too much.

Dresdenverse plays this trope perfectly, as the Winter Fae "trolls" are much more like the traditional D&D trolls. However, their intelligence is greater and they are accomplished smiths.

The Winter Fae trolls are also high-ranking enforcers of the Unseelie Court. Their opposite numbers in the Summer Court (literally; among their main jobs are to counter one another in the event of a fight) are gruffs, who work in threes.

In East by Edith Pattou (North Child in the UK), trolls are The Fair Folk. They live at the poles, have magical powers and extremely long lives, and abduct humans for slave labor. They are humanoid in their proportions, but have hard, ridged white skin and extremely rough voices.

Only the human characters call them trolls; the trolls call themselves the Huldre, a Scandinavian term that usually refers to human-like women with animal tails.

Trolls in David Eddings's The Elenium and The Tamuli series are semi-intelligent, simian creatures who can't die of natural causes. They (and their gods) become very important in the Tamuli. It's also interesting to note that it's later revealed that trolls and humans are related species, both evolving from creatures called Dawn Men.

Oddly enough, we never find out what trolls look like in The Belgariad, even though he describes quite a few other monsters in detail, including some that he invented for the series. All we know about them is you do NOT want to come face-to-face with them.

Nero, the cliff troll in the first Fablehaven book, is an oversized humanoid reptile. He likes to make deals, and is quite a dangerous haggler. There is also Udnar the mountain troll, huge and with sword-like spikes all over his back, used by the centaurs as security; Budba the hermit troll, small, goblin-like and, like all his race, extremely reclusive; and aquatic river trolls, some of which guard the Singing Sisters.

A troll appears in A Fantasy Attraction, gray, craggy, nasty... The only unusual thing is that it is a woman. Apparently, the way to tell is from her shapeless tunic; males only wear a loincloth.

In Dean Koontz's Frankenstein, Harker, one of the doctor's New Race, gives birth to a creature in chestburster fashion that resembles an albino dwarf and is dubbed a troll by Frankenstein's wife, with whom it strikes up an Odd Friendship based on their mutual hatred of their creator, her husband.

The trolls in Rienne Poortvliet's Gnomes books are nasty, ugly, foul, cruel — every feature every bad troll ever had lumped into one bloated hairy little monster. And there is a subspecies, the Snotgurgle, who is worse. Regular trolls may be dim-witted oafs who love to torment captured gnomes and kidnap human children, but Snotgurgles are horrible, filthy, cruel monsters who almost invariably kill the gnomes they capture, often in fairly nasty ways.

By contrast, in the animated series, the trolls are all of this but more like bullies than outright villains. David the Gnome actually rescued one of their children once. (Of course, the baby troll in question was abandoned by his mother and there were other... complexities, we'll say. But it's enough to note that the Gnomes were all for saving him anyway.)

Trolls in Teresa Edgerton's Goblin Moon and The Gnome's Engine are a crossbred or cursed offshoot of humanity, who resemble humans but sport bizarre, often bestial deformities. Their disfigurements are unique to each individual, which means that some can pass for human if they wear the right concealing clothes; it also means they hate their own looks. Trolls are carnivores, sometimes cannibals and are fond of human flesh, yet they're superficially very cultured and educated (particularly in black magic). Male trolls believe it's good for their health if they trick a human maiden into marriage, then drink some of her blood each night; this belief, which may just be a troll superstition, becomes a major plot point in the novels.

The trolls of Greystone Valley are indeed all different, ranging from giant monstrous types to tiny house trolls. Their forms depend on the environment they're raised in - basically, trolls are evolution cranked up to 11. The only thing they all share in common is an aversion to sunlight.

In One King's Way, second volume of The Hammer and the Cross trilogy by Harry Harrison, a troll or "marbendill" is a large intelligent humanoid that sometimes feeds on human flesh, lurks in the water to pull unwary boaters under, but otherwise is rather likeable, actually. No, really. Distinguished from humans by, among other things, a much lower sex drive; human behavior in that regard rather amuses them.

Trolls in the Harry Potter universe are strong, large, and not too possessed of smarts. There's nothing really unique about them. The first troll we meet is depicted like a wild animal let loose, but we later meet trolls who are somewhat smarter (at least in that they can be hired as thugs). Apparently, a rather optimistic wizard once tried to teach trolls ballet. It didn't end well for him. The trolls seen later were mentioned as 'comparing the size of their clubs.'

Trolls in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings are pretty much the same in appearance, except they turn to stone when they're caught in sunlight. Once again, the first trolls we meet are just big bullies who threaten to eat our heroes, but later on they are full-fledged fearsome monsters. Sauron uses them as shock troops.

It's also implied that they are twisted copies of Ents in the same way as Orcs are of Elves, though whether this is biological or just metaphorical is unknown.

Treebeard says that the trolls were an imitation of ents, an attempt to create creatures of similar strength and durability, though they are much weaker than the originals.

It should be noted that trolls come in a few varieties, including Cave-trolls, and Stone-trolls such as Bert, Tom and Bill. There are also the Olog-hai, stronger and smarter trolls created by Sauron, that don't turn to stone in the sun. There are also references to two-headed trolls, as well as 'troll-men' at the Battle of Pelennor Fields, though it may just be a metaphor for ugly guys.

In The Iron Teeth web serial, trolls are creatures that hunt within the northern forests. They are huge man-eating green-skinned monsters with two huge saber-tooth fangs that protrude from their mouth. They are capable of insanely fast movements and unexpected stealth. They smell the blood of their prey, and are capable of indefinitely stalking them if not put down first. They are also apparently distant relatives of goblins.

The trolls who appear in Jan Brett's picture books are little furry people with onion-shaped heads and long, lion-like tails. They're mischievous but nice guys.

In Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter's The Long Earth troll is the name given to a race of large, hairy, dimension traveling humanoids by Lobsang. Their level of intelligence is uncertain but they seem to have a language consisting of trills and whistles and are talented mimics and quite friendly. A human adopted by them when he crossed over into their world during WWI mistakes them for Russians and never realizes his mistake.

In Malediction Trilogy trolls live under the mountain but only because of the curse. They don't mind the sun and they are beautiful, although due to excessive inbreeding often also badly disfigured. And while they don't usually eat humans, they are very powerful, cure all injuries easily and they lust for gold.

Should be noted that "Troll" is what the ersatz Vikings in the books call them. Their name for themselves is Qanuc.

Trolls in Holly Black's Modern Faerie Tales are slightly larger and much uglier than most faeries, with greenish skin, protruding teeth, and black-and-gold eyes. They turn to stone in sunlight, but will recover when no longer exposed. Troll blood breeds true even when mixed with human. Ravus, the one major character who's a troll, is a little intimidating but a genuinely good guy, although it's indicated in other books that this isn't true of all trolls.

In A. Lee Martinez's Monster this trope even applies in story. All trolls look different although there are a few common characteristics. They're all small, between about one and three feet tall, all ugly, all smell horrible and they're all Extreme Omnivores with however a particular fondness for candy.

The Moomins are among the best-known friendly trolls. Moomintrolls are fuzzy and rather resemble tiny hippos. They occasionally interact with their ancestors, who live behind the stove, which are just called trolls. They seem to be smaller, darker, hairier and very feral. There seems to be different continuities, since there is an old Moomins story where they discover their mummified ancestors, who are very tall, stretched versions of the standards Moomins, and naturally come to life during the story.

In Robert Lynn Aspirin's Myth Adventures series, the male inhabitants of the dimension Trollia are trolls. The females are trollops. While the male trolls fit the big and ugly (but not the stupid) stereotype, trollops are gorgeous.

In Johanna Sinisalo's Not Before Sundown trolls are a scientifically acknowledged class of mammal that live in the northern forests and tundras. They're so reclusive that they were thought to be legend until somebody found a real corpse. They're about human-sized, bipedal, combine feline and primate traits, and have sleek, black fur and whip-like tails. As it turns out during the story, their pheromones are strong enough to cause obsessive love, or even sexual attraction in humans in some circumstances. They're also sentient, and have just recently learned to use human firearms, and have started poaching for hunters.

The trolls in The Broken Sword, however, are somewhat different: they are the arch-enemies of the faeries, can also be powerful warriors and sorcerers, but still cannot handle iron or tolerate sunlight.

The fairy tale type of troll (turns to stone when exposed to sunlight, guards bridges, and eats goats) appears in From a High Tower. Most are evil, but the one that appears, named Pieter, was apparently taught to be good and helps out the good guys.

According to the Old Icelandic Saga of Grettir the Strong, Grettir fought and killed two murderous trolls that haunted Bardardal in Northern Iceland. They were giant-sized, enormously strong, and presumably man-eaters.

In Nancy Farmer's The Sea of Trolls, the eponymous creatures are intelligent, massive, hairy, matriarchal people. They are often at war with their viking neighbors to the south, but somehow seem to be on good terms with them regardless. Also, for no particularly sensible reason, human/troll hybrids are Voluntary Shapeshifters.

They have the ability to change their form because they are caught between two worlds and two races; it appears all hybrids have this ability, as the half-kelpy in the sequel displays it as well.

In Terry Brooks' Shannara books there are several different sub-species of trolls. Rock Trolls live in the deep northland mountains and are shown to be about 8 feet tall with thick black bark-like skin. While they work for the villain in the first book they are not depicted as evil and help the humans, dwarfs, and especially the elves in the latter books. They are a Proud Warrior Race, shown as incredibly loyal and brave, of normal intelligence, and have a good mind for battle strategy. In the 3rd book there is a race of creatures related to trolls, Mwellrets, who live in the northeast swamps. They are normally large bipedal reptilians but can change their shape rather easily. They are sinister, greedy, and crafty and are seen as godlike overlords by the feral gnomes that serve them. The remaining two that exist (the Forest and River Trolls) have little information given about them. Terry must have decided that trolls were too varied to make just one race.

Given their backstory of being horrifically mutated humans, it makes sense that there would be multiple kinds.

The two trolls encountered in Jasper Fforde's Song of the Quarkbeast are twenty-five feet tall, have no nose or chin, although they do have tusks, dress primitively in loincloths and sandals, are heavily tattooed but are quite articulate. They also are unaware that humans are intelligent creatures, regarding the periodic invasions akin to pest infestations.

Trolls in The Spiderwick Chronicles are massive, vicious, hideous swamp-dwelling monsters, but what makes them distinct is their appearance in the movie and tie-in field guide, where they look like giant deformed monkeys with long, pointy noses. Arthur Spiderwick himself has got... a bit of a beef with them.

The Trolls of Tales of Kolmar are all long dead, and as such never get described. But as the Trelli they were one of the four sentient species - the others being Kantri, Raksha, and Gedri - who were asked to choose between order and chaos. It's mentioned that Trelli had "only the merest beginnings of speech" but still conveyed their wish to not be governed by these Powers, which was "the seed of their ending". Only their name survives - there is a place on that world called the Trollingwood.

In The Traitor Son Cycle, trolls are surprisingly slim and nimble large Horned Humanoids. It's speculated that they were an artificially-created warrior race, but in the present day, they're just another species of Wild creatures.

The Neil Gaiman's short story "Troll Bridge" features a troll with a nose keen enough to "smell the dreams you dreamed before you were born". And it eats a person's life and takes their place, leaving them, in exchange, to take the place of the troll.

In Greg Maguire's The Wicked Years books, trolls are the squat albinos who toil in the mines for the emeralds that make up the emerald city. It's not clear whether they are a separate race of creatures from munchkins and humans or whether "troll" is just an unflattering, possibly racist nickname for this one demographic of people.

Trolls in The Girl from the Miracles District vary wildly in size and degree to which they are humanlike, going from humanoid moving mountains to fanged people, but they all love to eat human meat.

Mithgar has Trolls as another name for Ogrus, the largest members of the diverse species that also includes Rucks (Goblins) and Hloks (Hobgoblins or Orcs). They stand twelve feet tall, have stony, nigh-impenetrable skin, and enjoy indulging in petty sadism. One notable Ogru guards Modru's gatehouse, while another acts as his personal torturer.

In The Secret of Platform 13, a troll named Henry Prendergast is one of the benevolent magical creatures living in London (in his case, the basement of the Bank of England). He is adept at Shapeshifting (or at least Human Shifting) but not much else is known about him.

Live-Action TV

We meet a Troll a few times in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and he is a fierce, hairy giant man with horns like a water buffalo. He has an... interesting back-story that involves Anya. He owns a Troll God's hammer. The fact that it is a godly weapon is not established until they need it to be, and how Olaf came to own it is never mentioned. At first, from Olaf being over two metres tall, it seems that Buffyverse trolls are very large — but we later find out that Olaf, a magically transformed human, was that size BEFORE he became a troll, and is by far the biggest troll his fellow villagers had ever seen.

In later seasons a third type of Troll appears who are pretty much human looking, made of living stone (making them look like statues when at rest), about twenty feet tall and not very bright. Their King, a particularly smart example "Has a vocabulary of twenty words, some of them pronouns and can count up to five."

And finally there are Mire Trolls described as even larger than normal trolls but "squishier."

Lady Catrina, the troll in the Merlin episode "Beauty and the Beast", is humanoid, but slightly shorter and fatter. She has a warty, ugly face with tusks, and is dirty and greedy, enchanting Uther to become queen and get his money. She loathes human food and prefers feasting in her nest on a diet of rotting fruit. Trolls here apparently have powerful magic that has the ability to prevent a human from seeing their true form and allows the troll to control them when used to enchant an amulet that the troll then convinces the victim to wear. Their blood, which is green, is used to do this. They can create a potion that allows them to take on human form temporarily. The only way to break their magic is for the victim (Uther in this case) to cry tears of true remorse.

Robert Troll, the Neighborhood of Make-Believe counterpart of Robert Trow, is a troll who could very well be a human without much difference; he's the same size and roughly as nice as any of them. He sometimes speaks in a kind of gibberish language called "troll talk", and even has a short song entirely in it. The best part - "Trow" actually means troll in some dialects of British English.

In Once Upon a Time two types of trolls have been seen. The Bridge Trolls are an angry race of monsters who have issues with human nobles, and who are also intelligent enough to make deals. They are of the large, ugly and greedy variety and yes, live under a bridge. Meanwhile, the Rock Trolls from Frozen appear more benign, and try their best to help humans who seek them out.

In So Weird, a troll runs a Scandinavian restaurant at the base of a drawbridge. Disguising herself as an unassuming elderly woman, she transforms visitors into vegetables for failing to answer trivia questions.

Trolls in The 10th Kingdom are human-sized, ugly, with overdone mullets, and an obsession with leather. Especially shoes. It isn't clear if the shoe fetish is a racial trait or not, all of the trolls who exhibit it are immediate family. Despite their human size, they are incredibly strong. At one point one was hit by a car, leaving a deep indent in the front of the car but barely moving the troll.

The crew of The Terror are hunted by a troll-like cannibalistic monster known as the Tuunbaq.

You're Skitting Me had a song called "I'm an Internet Troll Without the Internet". In it, the trollwho was reduced to roaming the street and insulting strangers to their facewas portrayed as a wizened figure, something like a human-sized Harry Potter goblin.

Music

All of Trollfest's music is about Trolls, which are somewhat Goblin-like, love mead and eat Christians. They also speak some weird combination of German and Norwegian, but some also speak English. There are many individual Trolls like the hunter Jeger Meister, the beekeeper Brumlebassen or Brakebein, the hero of their second album, who is searching for the Legendary beer.

Myths & Religion

In a significant number of legends from the Orkneys and Shetland Islands, trolls (trowe, from the Scots word) are explicitly described as shorter than humans, or even really small. They are also both shy and mischievous, as well as possessing a fondness for music. Hypothesizing, this may be due to cultural cross-pollination between the British goblin and the Scandinavian troll. Also, the word "trowe" is thought to be synonymous with old Norse's "svartalv", as they are depicted in nearly the same way.

As pointed out at the top of the page, a lot of myths paint contradictory pictures of trolls. Hence the trope name. Depending on the myth, they range from well-meaning and friendly, but terribly dim-witted and sometimes inadvertently harmful creatures to cruel man-eating monsters that abduct and devour children. And that's just their disposition. Getting started on ranges in size, ability, and other attributes would take up the whole page.

Not just true of trolls, but of mythological creatures in general. Originally, the terms Dark Elf and Dwarf were used interchangeably for the same creatures. It wasn't until the late Middle Ages that they were widely differentiated. Trolls are just particularly noticeable since most myths just have a couple versions of each other but can generally agree on most aspects of a given creature. Troll legends agree that they are roughly humanoid in shape — and nothing else, despite a tendency for malevolence.

In some Scandinavian myths, trolls are pictured as roughly man-sized, hairy, swarthy and ugly beings who dwell in the mysterious forest. Trolls usually possess great mineral wealth, to the point that "rich as a troll" is still a figure of speech. Sometimes they switch one of our babies for one of their own, so they can use the human baby as a worker; the changeling doesn't really fit with human society, so it returns to the forest at some point. Plus, the worse the troll baby is treated, the worse the real baby gets it. If you treat it good enough, you might even get your baby back. And even this part varies. Some changeling stories instead say you should abuse the child, so that the troll will realize it made a bad trade and take its child back.

Icelandic trolls are considered the same as ogres and range from being about double the size of humans to being taller then mountains. They also eat children. Icelandic folklore is fairly consistent in that its trolls usually turn to stone if they are exposed to sunlight. There is also a version that turns to stone at the ringing of church bells, which would explain why trolls are so rare nowadays.

When it comes to mythological trolls, Kaja Foglio's adaptation of The Cat on the Dovrefjell actually hit the nail on the head. Certain legends even described the males of the species as being hideously ugly, but the females (tails and occasional other weird features notwithstanding) as quite attractive by human standards. (For an example of this in modern media, do a Google search for "Cutefase.") The beautiful troll females described in the story above (as well as in the Foglios' XXXenophile story, see the comic books folder) are known as Huldra. To further complicate matters, Huldra are considered to be related to both trolls and The Fair Folk. They prefer human men, though. This is consistent with actual Norse Mythology, in which a huldra (or huldre) is generally speaking a beautiful, if temperamental woman with a cow tail and unusual strength; they're both trolls, The Fair Folk, and confusingly, also a type of "Alf" (Elf, that is).

Another mythological creature comparable to trolls in their vagueness is the Bunyip, a creature in Aboriginal and Australian folklore. About the only common feature any rendition of the bunyip has is that it lives in swamps, and sometimes it's basically an Ultimate Evil.

Most traditional Norwegian trolls are very large — ranging from slightly taller than a man to twice as tall as a tree. They live in the mountains, generally near large forests. Some may seem moss-grown; most are dimwitted. Certain trolls also burst and turn to stone in the sunlight, which kills them. All trolls can be killed like any other creature, they are just very hard to kill because of their size and strength.

Besides these general characteristics, few fairy tales portray the trolls the same way as another. The most famous might be the one who lived under a bridge and tried to capture goats. One story has trolls with multiple heads. Another tells of a very stupid troll who was tricked into cutting his own belly open. Yet another troll kidnapped girls and took them into his own to marry them. (If they wouldn't he tore their heads off. Somehow everyone got better.) Trolls are truly diverse creatures.

In Skáldskaparmál a troll describes her kind as dwelling on the moon, sucking up the wealth of jotnars, destroying a sun, serving seers, guarding graves and swallowing a wheel of heaven. Given that previous paragraphs were about Thor spending all day crushing trolls with a hammer, little of this was likely true but does suggest they are extremely arrogant.

To make matters worse, in Norwegian myth the word troll can be applied to almost any member of The Fair Folk, of which some are more obviously troll-like then others, but when it comes to naming and separating those creatures it is actually rather consistent:

Plain "Troll" or "Rise": Large, often evil, humanoids living in mountains. Often have pieces of landscape (like moss or trees) growing on them, multiple heads and other deformations. Are more prone to be vulnerable to sunlight than other variants.

"Skogstroll" (Forest Troll): Similar to the above, but forest-dwelling and often smaller (still larger than a human though). Often considered the same as the English Ogre.

"Havtroll" (Sea Troll): Similar to those above, but lives in the sea. Its body is covered in seaweed and its face is like that of a fish. Stories about this variant are increasingly rare.

"Nisse" or "Tomte"(depending on region): Small and friendly—thought somewhat mischievous—creature living in and near farms. Can be compared to more traditional depictions of Leprechauns. It's important to note that a "Nisse" or "Tomte" is considered to the personification of a farm or the spirit of the farm's original owner.

"De underjordiske" (the subterraneans): Small, usually evil creatures that live underground. Steal children either by swapping infants with one of their own (a bytting/changeling) or abducting lone children in the forest at night.

"Hulder" (hidden) or Skogsrå (forest lady): Beautiful women with cow-tails (and in some stories, a hole in their back. Somehow). Giving in to their seduction is usually not a good idea. Note however that "hulderfolk" is also used to refer to The Fair Folk in general.

"Nøkk": Shape-shifting water-dweller that lures people to lakes or rivers and drowns them. Always male. Usually sings too, but is not a siren.

A reoccurring plot point in the Icelandic sagas where some of the lesser known gods are called trolls by people who do not recognize them but can clearly tell they are not human. The men that know better are sometimes able to get these gods on their side.

In Sami mythology, trolls are evil spirit invaders from another realm or basically another name for demons.

Irish mythology holds that humans had to fight a long bitter war to wrest control of the land of Ireland from a race of foul, lumpen, mis-shapen, not especially intelligent, creatures with no table manners called the Fomorians - trolls by any other name. Given the cultural interplay between Ireland and Scandinavia, it is possible ideas concerning trolls cross-fertilised each other's folklore and mythology.

In the board game Bridge Troll players play as trolls who eat and extort the travelers who attempt to cross their bridges.

The trolls of Changeling: The Dreaming are big and strong and have horns... and that's mostly where the similarity to an "average" troll ends. They're not necessarily dumb or ugly, and they're some of the best warriors of Changeling society. Their major weakness is that they're bound by honor; if they break an oath, they lose their strength, and if someone else breaks an oath they made with a troll, well... they'd better get out of the way.

In Chronopia, the Blackblood Trolls have four arms, and are highly intelligent. They're not as aggressive as the other Blackbloods, but in combat they become a whirlwind of arms and blades.

Dragon Dice has trolls who are one of the monsters for the Goblin race. Arguably one of the best units in the game, these trolls have the size and strength typical of fantasy trolls, but also have the somewhat unusual ability to regenerate units other than themselves.

The trolls aren't too smart, and are also known for their prodigious strength and size. They also have the quality of being able to regenerate most forms of damage, even losing their heads! Only fire or acid will keep them down for long. This depiction was very probably originally derived directly from Poul Anderson's Three Hearts and Three Lions; the earliest illustrations of D&D trolls closely match Anderson's description.

There are various troll subspecies who may omit the vulnerability to acid and/or fire, or gain a new one (and with the right templates, can have no particular vulnerabilities). Such species include swamp trolls, mountain trolls, crystal trolls and war trolls.

Additionally, the Fensir, or Ysgardian trolls, have nothing to do with the above and more closely resemble the trolls from Norse mythology.

Pathfinder trolls are similar to the D&D ones in terms of behavior and regeneration abilities, but are physically different, resembling hunched, ugly humanoids with huge underbites (supposedly, this redesign was because the cover of the first Bestiary featured a monster of such description, but none of the staff at Paizo knew what it was supposed to be, so they labelled it a troll and it stuck). Of course, there are also other types of trolls like the intelligent ice trolls, the subterranean rock trolls (that turn to stone when exposed to sunlight), the hulking nine-headed jotund trolls, and the arboreal moss trolls. Also of note are trollhounds, which resemble trolls as bulldogs and have the same qualities as standard trolls.

Earthdawn's trolls are this, with a dash of vikingian Sky Pirate. They make good wizards, especially Elementalists.

Trolls in Grimm all have wildly different, though hideous and roughly person-shaped, appearances, but they have a few things in common: They're all man-eaters who live under bridges, maintaining them and collecting tolls from those who pass over them. They have master knowledge of the structure and maintenance of bridges, but are weakened greatly if they stray too far from their bridge. They can also hum a wondrous soothing subsonic tune that helps persuade otherwise reluctant people to cross their bridges — cats can actually hear it, and intensely dislike it.

GURPS, being a generic rule-set, can handle a wide variety of troll types. For example:

The current edition of GURPS Fantasy explicitly bases its troll templates on folklore. These trolls are huge, ugly humanoids who turn to stone when exposed to sunlight. Troll-women are weaker than their male counterparts, but possess powerful magic.

GURPS Banestorm trolls are fairly generic monsters, perhaps most resembling a much-toned-down version of Grendel and his mother from Beowulf.

GURPS Thaumatology: Alchemical Baroque has rather folkloric trolls which are essentially variants of its ogres; former immaterial spirits who have, on an incomprehensible whim, "burned out" their spirit powers in the process of taking the physical form of a big, hideous material being, reducing their minds to a parody of intelligence in the process.

The Iron Kingdoms have the Trollbloods, which are split into several different kinds. You have the Dire Trolls (massive and stupid), the Full Blood Trolls (not too bright, still pretty tall), Trollkin (who basically take the role of Orcs in IK) and Pygmies (small but not as bright as trollkin). The Trollkin have been dicked over by pretty much every faction in Warmachine and Hordes. They regenerate like a number of examples on this page, able to grow back a limb that's chopped off. With Dire Trolls or Full Blooded Trolls, the limb that was dismembered may grow into a tiny troll called a Whelp (with an over-sized limb, hand, foot, or even a finger, depending on what they are regenerating out of), kind of like starfish. Trolls view their whelps a bit like kids, a bit like pets, and (for the Dire Trolls and full-blooded trolls) a bit like snacks.

Magic trolls are also often hexproof—that is, unable to be targeted by opponents' spells.

The modern pattern for trolls is pretty consistent: Green, with regeneration, hexproof, or both. The hexproof part is so iconic (though primarily through the efforts of the previously-linked Troll Ascetic) that before it was known officially as "hexproof", the ability "cannot be the target of spells or abilities your opponents control" was often known by the Fan Nickname "troll shroud" (after the keyword "shroud" for "cannot be the target of spells or abilities [controlled by anyone]").

Trolls in RuneQuest's Glorantha are a bit bigger than humans with pale fur and snout-like faces, and are about as smart. They're Extreme Omnivores and practice ritual cannibalism in lieu of burial rites. They are a Dying Race due to an ancient curse that causes most of their children be born as deformed, dim Trollkin. They're a lot like Blizzard-style Orcs, in fact, though a bit bigger and stronger.

Scion: Ragnarok has two mechanically-similar breeds of troll. One type are the children of the troll-wives; the other is the result of giving a giant's eitr (mutative blood) to a dwarf.

Shadowrun's trolls are pretty much the embodiment of the Mighty Glacier — massive, powerful, built like a tank, but slow both physically and mentally. They also tend to have random horns, warts, and bony ridges all over their body. So they're big, ugly, mean... and pretty much the best guys to have on your side in a fight.

Daniel, Bear Shaman: If trolls were really as dumb as they're made out to be there wouldn't be too many troll runners. We'd all be dead of our own idiocy by now.

It's stated that trolls are literally slow-witted. They can be quite intelligent, but they just don't think as quickly as a human. The fact that the smartest humans are "smarter" than the smartest trolls is based on this deficiency, rather than lower intellect.

The tie-in novel Changelingthe protagonist of which was a brilliantrich kid who'd goblinizedwent into detail on this. Once Peter adjusted to troll thought processes, it was clear that he was still pretty damn sharp (even if he did spend a lot of time playing it down).

In Runner Havens, a troll is on Hong Kong's board of directors. His name is Tai Kong. It goes without saying his nickname is "King".

In the supplement Dunkelzahn's Secrets, there is a list of candidates the dragon Dunkelzahn defeated to become President of the UCAS (what the USA became) - the republican candidate, Anne Penchyk, is a troll.

As trolls are far bigger than humans (average height over 9 feet), they have to pay double for their living costs to get things made specifically for them according to the 5th edition rulebook.

In a Brazilian RPG setting called Tormenta, Trolls are Plant-people (well, maybe fungus people, can't remember), thus justifying their vulnerability to fire and regeneration. They are of the tall, mean and brainless monster variety.

There is also a monster race from another dimension, can't remember the name, but they share the extreme sexual differences from some Troll tales: the women are beautiful and elf-like, and the men are big, brutish, with green hair and four arms, but both are good.

In the tabletop board game Trollhalla players play as trolls who are sick of sitting under bridges extorting travelers for cash (or simply eating them) and instead go out for a seafaring adventure to sack and plunder islands full of mortified monks, panicked princesses, and tasty pigs and peasants, of course.

Trolls in Warhammer are pretty classic fantasy trolls — big, hulking, stupid humanoids — only adding on a ridiculously-caustic stomach acid, capable of digesting rock, that they like to vomit on their foes/victims. And even then, there are at least three kinds of trolls in the Warhammer universe, besides the "common" trolls commonly found tagging along with Greenskin armies:

Rock trolls inhabit desolate, rocky wastelands, and have taken to eating rocks for lack of anything else. They are noted to be more resistant to magic than the regular kind of troll.

River trolls have scales and live by and in bodies of water. They are revoltingly smelly and filthy even by troll standards.

Chaos Trolls are even weirder due to living so close to the Realm of Chaos. Their regenerating powers cause them to mutate even more than other races. What makes this even worse is the existence of Throgg, the Troll King. After having his head cut off, it grew back, only this time with a mutation giving him genius intellect. Suffice to say, he was a nasty surprise to the Empire, who were used to Trolls being complete morons.

Warhammer 40,000: While they are not a big part of the lore, there are some knocking about the galaxy. The most famous are probably the Ice Trolls of Fenris, who are not made of ice but are vulnerable (slightly) to fire.

In Polish tabletop steampunk RPG Wolsung Steam Pulp Fantasy, trolls are a playable race. The game uses all three basic stereotypes of a troll. Troll children are fairytale trolls - small, big-headed, tricksters with magical powers. When they grow up, they resemble huge, muscular humans with flaming red hair, have an obsession with honor, and tend towards very explosive personalities. A male troll technically grows larger through his entire life, and he gets meaner. Old trolls with every period of rage become one step closer to becoming monsters. And in women, emotion and compassion die, turning them into fairy-tale witches.

Palladium Fantasy has Trolls available as a player race. They are the largest, strongest and dimmest race available, and they sport claws that cause quite a bit of damage. Beyond that, however, there is nothing particularly unusual about them.

Theater

According to Peer Gynt, the only difference between trolls and men is that men say "be yourself" and trolls say "be yourself enough".

Toys

LEGO brand building bricks depict trolls as either green men with tusks and red eyes that you'd be forgiven for mistaking for Orcs, or traditional troll-sized dumb brutes. Some of the giant trolls are tan, but they're still called trolls.

A number of years ago, it was something of a fad to collect small plastic humanoid toys that had large, brightly-coloured hair and were referred to as Trolls. And even then, they brought out a toyline aimed at MEN. MANLY MEN. with muscular, barbaric trolls who (according to the wrapping) were the enemies of the cutesy girly ones. Though they still sported the same hairdos. Original Scandinavian troll dolls were more Ugly Cute, and lacked the Anime Hair. They were created by a Danish fisherman in the 1950s.

They also have an extreme tendency towards "regeneration", which depending on the game might just make them slowly regain health, might fully heal in a matter of seconds if not killed fast (especially if everything in the game regains health in real time), may make them rise from the dead, and is almost always hindered in some equally inconsistent way by fire (and sometimes, though not always, by acid).

The Trolls of the AdventureQuest Worlds universe rule one half of the Bloodtusk Ravine (the other half being Horc territory). They have a love of literature and art, are quite adept in the use of magic, and in the art of combat are unparalleled strategists. Physically, they're not much larger than regular humans and have skin coloration ranging from a greenish blue to dark blue, with males having big ears and differently-sized noses and tusks depending on the troll, and females being Cute Monster Girls.

Trolls in Ancient Domains of Mystery come in two distinct flavors, the standard hostile Trolls and "civilized" Trolls, the latter of which is a playable race. Hostile Trolls are basically garden-variety, while player Trolls start off considerably chaotic (though not as much as Orcs), suffer massive price penalties with Dwarf, Elf and Gnome shopkeepers, and have the lowest maximum hunger and second-lowest lifespan of any of the player races. That said, their Healing Factor can make them borderline game breaking if playing as a Healer.

In the 2004 game, The Bard's Tale, Trow (What people called Trolls on the Orkney Islands) are short, Goblin-like creatures that are an annoyance in the beginning. That is, until your average enemy becomes Clock-Work Knights and ten-foot tall undeadVikings.

Even then there are two varieties of Trow: Kunal Trow are the bigger, more violent type, while Peerie Trow are the smaller, cunning variety. A Kunal Trow'll rip your guts out, a Peerie will sing about it later.

Trolls in Castle Crashers are huge-eyed black humanoidish stick-wielding forest creatures possibly made of hair. They are produced from the mouth of an insane crying black fuzzy square face with legs called a Big Troll. Ostensibly, these are hairballs of the "Giant Troll," a weeping cat-like monster of immense proportions and questionable motivation has hair that resembles its supposed progeny's "fuzzy" make up. You can (with a bomb) unlock a "Troll Orb" as one of many circular "animal" spirits. It does allows you to slowly regenerate health, so there's that.

The Trolls are a street gang in City of Heroes who all have green skin and grow horns and super strength as they move up in rank. These are all side-effects of a super steroid that they abuse called Superadine. They also tend to have stunted speech, but this is just an extremely limited side effect of the Superadine — a Troll retains their basic level of intelligence, even if they do start talking like a stereotypical caveman.

And since the players can have green skin, horns, and the same superpowers, there are quite a few Troll heroes and villains out there. A lot of the player-made ones are cute monster girls since The Trolls are an all-male street gang.

Trolls in Drakensang are large humanoid giants full of hair who likes to eat "sweet stuff", especially honey and "sweet dust" (sugar). Other than this, they're quite likeable. In the second game you can fight a two trio of troll, but they're very dangerous.

Trolls in Dungeon Crawl come in a few different varieties of fast-healing unarmed melee brutality, each one nastier than the last: trolls, deep trolls, rock trolls, and iron trolls. Trolls are also a playable race, notable for being able to eat everything, needing to eat everything due to lightning-fast metabolism, and not being very good at any class or role except for aforementioned unarmed melee brutality. To their credit, though, they are amazing at it.

The common "troll", a basically sentient but slow-witted beast which Goblins sometimes use as living battering rams to break fortress doors and cause havoc. Description text tells that trolls are "huge humanoid monsters with coarse fur, large tusks and horns." Now that shearing has been implemented, they are also goblins' source of wool which combined with their gray fur and black skin may mean they look quite a lot like giant, monstrous, humanoid sheep. They also have cyan-coloured blood, for some reason. These trolls are slow learners, but over their 800-1000 year lifespans can acquire a skilled trade, leading to butchers/bakers/candlestick makers accompanying a goblin invasion. Though they function the same in gameplay, individual members are about as different as any other sentient race.

Morrowind does not have trolls, but it does have Trollbone Armor. The helmet is a troll skull with a third eye socket, foreshadowing their codified appearance in Oblivion.

Trolls in Final Fantasy XI are large, bulky, plate-armor wearing mercenaries. They, in the past, were allies of the player-friendly Empire of Aht Urhgan, but turned against them and are now in the employ of Moblins (Goblins with fancy armor).

In The Frostrune, an app adventure game in a Norse setting, a troll is the main and only antagonist: also called Jotunn, the Troll is a spirit of frost and ice from Hel itself, who has seemingly killed all the warriors of the island and frozen solid several sacred locations and places. Your quest is to find a way to bind the Troll to a dolmen and then banish it to Hel with the titular rune. This Troll can only be seen in the spiritual realm, and appears as a tall, highly-stylized spirit with horns, a long beard and a Nightmare Face with gaping eyes and rows of teeth.

The Locust in Gears of War are arguably a Not Using the Zed Word or Call a Rabbit a "Smeerp" version of trolls, given some of the parallels to the "repulsive underground dweller hostile to man" version of trolls — including being considered legendary monsters. They vary from diminutive humanoids to enormous pseudo-arthropods, using teeth, claws, or guns — either scavenged from humans, or their own designs — and seem to actually be fairly intelligent.

Trolls in the Gothic series are huge ape-like creatures with massive arms and short legs, brown fur and incredibly tough skin, but no regeneration. A young troll is a tough fight for two skilled warriors, a fully grown troll requires the main character to be up to borderline-demigod prowess or competent at circle strafing, and the even bigger and scarier-looking black troll is stronger yet. Their punches will also send you flying. Luckily, there is a spell called "shrink monster" that will - well, you figure it out.

Trolls in Guild Wars are largely confined to the continent of Tyria. They appear somewhat reptilian with a single eye and tusks. They're roughly humanoid but possess no neck and have bony spurs along their shoulders. While they are all warriors, many have the healing ability "Troll Unguent" usually reserved for rangers.

In the sequel Guild Wars 2 trolls appear to be an entirely different species, having a classic slouch caveman posture, digitigrade feet, and bat-like features. They have some rudimentary intelligence as they wear loinclothes, craft basic shelters, and display tribal markings.

Heroine's Quest: The Herald of Ragnarok, being based on Norse mythology, uses the classic trolls who are big green-skinned brutes, who are none too bright, fight with a club, and turn to stone in the daylight. As a nod to D&D, they also regenerate in combat. Their leader is the two-headed Thrivaldi who fancies himself The Chessmaster (and is really, really too stupid for that).

The Trolls found in Kameo are what most would consider to be "standard" Trolls, to the point of being generic. Brutish, violent, fairly dim and always spoiling for a rumble. However, there are some sub-species that are encountered along the way, some lethal (Fire Trolls, Ice Trolls and Shadow Trolls) and some not so lethal (small Trolls who hide in metal balls, Trolls that are part plant). The "normal" Trolls stand out from the magical folk of the game by having a unique affinity with machines; a trait which forged the foundation of a shaky truce until Thorn (a "cunning Troll") took control of the entire race and began yet another war.

In Magicka, Trolls appear as large brutish giants with a small healing factor which can be counteracted by fire, but can still be killed with other elements. they also come in various Underground Monkey varieties, each with increasing levels of strength and speed. Their intelligence is debatable, as some varieties seem little more than animals, others use weapons advanced as BFGs, and the impressive ruins explored in the second to last chapter (which includes doors with magick based locks, some electronic equipment, and copius amounts of lava) was created by the trolls, leaving them as potential genius bruisers.

Majesty took the regeneration of trolls very literally, having them ooze together in the middle of the city to wreak havoc and then melt into a green puddle when defeated. Their appearance clearly points to Dungeons & Dragons as inspiration.

About the only thing consistent with trolls in Might and Magic (including Heroes) is being large humanoids with non-human skin colours, although pointy ears and noses are common. The game that gives the most focus to them is Day of the Destroyer, in which they are both a player and NPC race, presenting them as a somewhat primitive but not dumb, hard to kill through sheer toughness and healingnote mechanically, trolls as a playable race starts out with high Endurance, the ability score that influences hit points, and is the only one that can take both the Bodymaster (adds to hit points) and Regeneration (adds hit point healing) skills to Grandmaster, but can't wear heavier armour than leather and with poor luck in their homes (their current home got hit by a storm of fire that left a lake of fire as a result of the event that start off the game, and their accurately say they had to flee from their old home... because, as it turns out, it got infested with basilisks. And then the entire world gets destroyed a few years after the game.

In Bungie Studio's old Myth series of strategy games, there were the Trow (an alternate spelling of "troll") who were twelve foot tall giants with bodies like stone. The Trow are immortal unless killed, and incapable of reproduction (all existing Trow having been created by the god Nyx at the beginning of the world according to the Trow's own legends.) They are capable of surviving anything short of dismemberment, and wear belts of skulls about their waists. When fighting creatures smaller than they are (which is to say, most creatures) their combat techniques generally involve kicking those creatures across the landscape with messy results.

Trolls in Nethack have a large chance of spontaneously reviving if their corpse isn't taken care of in some way, like being eaten, disintegrated, or thrown underwater (fire does NOT, by the way, really help in this case). However, they lose a level every time and have a chance of not coming back anyways. They tend to make decent pets for the careless.

The original Nexus War had a giant mutated troll-golem created by the Sand Witch of Galmath, which roamed the ruins of its creator's desert fortress. It was one of the few wandering monsters that wasn'tThat One Boss, but it still regenerated health so quickly that trying to kill it was usually futile.

Trolls in Pillars of Eternity,are huge humanoids, absolutely covered with fungus and lichen. Their regenerative ability is represented as them getting one usage of the Second Chance ability when they would be killed the first time.

In Puzzle Quest, trolls are large, grayish creatures with the annoying habit of regenerating health, though they are still perfectly killable. During a sidequest, however, you are told something that basically amounts to them being able to regenerate even after being eaten, which can be prevented by ingesting poison.

In RIFT, trolls are fairly standard hulking, stony-skinned brutes. What makes them different is that they are former servants of an ancient race of titans, who are not intelligent enough to form language, but can understand psychic messages left behind by the titans. Some of them have chosen to obey the giants, who used to be the middle managers between the titans and the trolls. Also, Asha Catari has one for a bodyguard.

Trolls in Sacrifice are large, green humanoids with a Healing Factor that lack heads and have their faces on their chests instead. They serve the goddess of life, Persephone, and are as such benign. Pyro has a creature known as a firefist, which is a troll with flamethrowers attached to its fists — due to the resulting burns, they do not regenerate. Both variants communicate purely through Hulk Speak.

Spellforce trolls are large, grey-skinned humanoids who speak entirely in "whine", can do marvellous things with rocks, and are about the only Dark race with decent missile attacks that don't count as magical. Their turrets are also ludicrously overpowered.

Trolls in Stonekeep are corrupted faeriefolk, and look as such (kind of like evil hobbits). They cannot cross iron spikes driven into the ground and have an aversion to faerie garb—if you equip yourself entirely in faerie clothing, you become completely immune to the attacks of trolls, even though you look very stupid doing so.

In Tibia, trolls are a weak race of hominids with no special powers, but with an apparent appetite for dogs. A clan of swamp trolls are seen worshipping a soccer ball. The Swamp Trolls are green, and can poison the player, regular Trolls are brown as are Island Trolls, which wield Marlins as swords. There's also a blue race called Ice Trolls.

Trolls in the World of Warcraft universe are almost as varied as the other examples on this page due to being split into several subraces. They live in tribal societies, are tall with short blue or grey fur, have three fingers and toes, often speak with an Afro-Caribbean or Cuban accent, practice Hollywood Voodoo, and have varied regenerative powers. Males have long ears, big noses, large tusks, and walk with a hunch. Females have slightly pointed ears, normal noses, small tusks, and walk upright. They live in all climes, usually adapting to the environment and forming distinct clans of Frost Trolls, Jungle Trolls, Desert Trolls, etc. Trolls were once the great superpower of Azeroth, with ancient civilizations spanning the major continents, but they're generally in decline these days, displaced by being on the losing end of many, many wars with other races.

Trolls are also typically savage, cannibalistic, and almost universally antagonistic, both against other races (particularly humans and PARTICULARLY elves of all stripes) and against different tribes of trolls. The Forest Trolls had a brief alliance of convenience with the Horde during Warcraft II, but after the war effort faltered they quickly reverted back to a sense of general hostility toward Horde peoples. There are notable exceptions: The Darkspears are a small tribe of jungle trolls long persecuted by their own kind who ally with the new Horde when the orc leader Thrall saves their lives. Two other troll tribes ally with the Horde much later, though they don't seem to be very extensively assimilated into the larger faction. A few years back a great many troll tribes banded together in an unprecedented campaign of cooperation to reassert their authority in the world, but these efforts failed.

In general, trolls seem a big genetically unstable. Night Elves, and by extension all derivative elves, were originally a band of trolls who changed after exposure to the Well of Eternity, although this point is still somewhat controversial, as the elves themselves don't really like the notion. Dire trolls are a genetic anomaly that causes some trolls to grow to gargantuan proportions.

The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings gives a nod to the mythological notion of trolls being made of stone and petrify in sunlight. In reality, trolls are giant, butt-ugly humanoids, but made of flesh and blood all the same. According to the lore, they have a penchant for construction and alcoholism, and will often build bridges and charge travelers toll to cross them. The toll is always quickly blown on booze. Their relationship with humans residing in the area is often positive, as it is cheaper to pay the troll to maintain the bridge than to have other humans do it.

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt changes it up. Trolls are smaller and far less humanoid than their Assassins of Kings variants. Instead, they are rotund creatures with bodies made primarily of stone, with the exception of a soft, fleshy abdomen. Their man-eating tendencies are also played up quite a bit. However, just like in the previous game there are many that are reasonable (if dim), and even friendly to humans and other races. A couple of examples include a troll who served the Redanian army by guarding their boats (by ripping them apart and building a barricade around where they used to be. At least he tried.), and another who reigns as the Champion of Champions among fist fighters.

Dan and Mab's Furry Adventures doesn't have trolls as such, but does have the 'Mythos', which is a catch-all term for any Creature race that doesn't fit into any other category.

Ursula Vernon's work features trolls that look like really rather adorable pudgy frog/goat things. Their eyes get huge at night, as the protagonist of Digger finds out. In Vernon's taxonomy, trolls and goats are actually descended from a common ancestor, which is why they're very embarrassed about that whole "billy goats" thing, and it's impolite to bring it up. Furthermore, the word "troll" also serves as a job title — meaning that the first "troll" we meet is actually a shrew.

Dungeon Damage had a number biological handwaves for their regenerating trolls— body parts designed to survive disembowelment and dismemberment, including primitive auxiliary "lungs" in the sinus cavities to keep the decapitated head alive, an oxygen-absorbing fluid throughout the body that seals wounds and prevents infection and blood loss, arteries with peristaltic pumping action, and a nervous system that produces bioelectrical pulses to control limbs physically separated from the body. The author likes to show his work.

Erfworld doesn't exactly have trolls. It does, however, have twolls (along with dwagons, gobwins, and spidews). They're large compared to Erfworld "humans", but Parson (the protagonist, a human from Earth) is approximately the same size as a twoll. This is a source of some humor in the early strips. Twolls are ugly, strong, and not very bright. Parson is ... well, certaily not attractive, strong by Erfworld standards, and extremely bright but also very much a fish out of water, so guess what a lot of people meeting him for the first time assume?

The similarity is close enough to facilitate a Foolamancy trick to disguise a twoll as Parson at a key moment.

In Errant Story the trolls were one of the original species (possibly the second after the dwarves) to inhabit the world, though their civilization was destroyed and their numbers devastated once the various elven races got together and launched a long, though ultimately unsuccessful campaign to exterminate them. They were likely created by Anilis and Senilis, the elven creator gods, though the elves believe that the mortal (albeit long-lived) trolls were failures and sought to wipe their creators' "failure" from existence. Humans and elves tend to have very little contact with them, considering trolls to be violent, unintelligent monsters. From what the audience has actually seen of the trolls they are large, strong, and matriarchal (as apparently only the women are able to use magic). They are cannibalistic, though it is more of a religious ritual than a survival mechanism, trolls don't believe in an afterlife and thus deceased individuals are eaten by their tribes so they may live on in another sense. They seem to mirror the Kroot of Warhammer 40k in this regard, but without the freaky genetics that make it actually true, and like the Kroot having your remains eaten after you die seems to be something of a compliment (they do it to humans only if suitably impressed). In fact, their culture's capital punishment specifically requires that the criminal's corpse be left for the worms. They consider cremation very offensive, and burning a troll's corpse will royally piss them off.

Also, despite the aforementioned cannibalism, they seem to have an Only Sane Man thing going compared to the other powers that be. Their reaction to the Woobie Destroyer of Worlds approaching them and asking for an alliance is to peacefully but loudly decline, then immediately decide to uproot their settlement and move to a place with less crazy.

Fairy Dust trolls are as large, strong and resilient as one can expect. They have a poor sense of personal hygiene and are usually content with their appearance no matter how they actually look. They are poor warriors, as most aren't very aggressive, and their low birth rate incites them to protect their youths' lives at any cost. They can tolerate sunlight, but are vulnerable to heat and prefer shade.

Trolls are a prominent part of the World's Rebellion in Guilded Age. They have regenerative abilities, and it's mentioned that troll blood is a potential treatment for minor wounds and that in order to ensure they stay dead, they have to be decapitated. However, other than that they seem closer to Blizzard-style orcs than the general depiction of trolls.

In Hereville, Mirka dreams about a troll which is a large bearded biped with too many eyes. Later she encounters the real one, which has a blob for a body, six stick-thin limbs, carries a handbag, and likes knitting.

Played with in Looking for Group. Since the comic started as a World of Warcraft parody, it was assumed that Cute Monster Girl Benn'joon was a troll since she resembles the ones in the game. But once the comic developed its own universe, its own trolls appeared and she looks nothing like them. Here, they're a warrior race of greenish/yellowish-skinned humanoids with glowing reddish eyes and humanoid (albeit large) hands and feet, live in a tribal culture and possess shamanic magic, and are as intelligent as any other humanoid race (except Tim, who's...special). They are initially introduced as antagonists, until Cale helps recruit them into the Kingdom of Kethenecia. As for Benny, she is later revealed to be half-elf half-minotaur.

My Roommate Is an Elf features a troll named Dearg. He has green skin, yellow eyes, and ears similar to an elf's. He turns to stone when exposed to sunlight (but turns to flesh again as soon as he gets out of sunlight), and had to wear a cloak to attend a parade.

Trolls in Prague Race are horned with tails which will just keep growing and lose their sense of self over time without taking the "changeling option".

PvP: Skull. Blue, horned, fat, farts a lot, genuinely nice and adorkable. He's been with Scott Kurtz's work for a long time, serving as a mascot, comic relief and semi-Author Avatar since his Everquest-based comic Samwise in the 90's. His status in the comic as a mythical creature is subject to some Magical Realism restrictions; he was apparently assigned to Brent Sienna as an imaginary friend when Brent was a kid and just stuck around. Has recently struck up a friendship with The Freemont Troll (see below) since the comic moved to Seattle.

In Serenity Rose, trolls are big hairy creatures with almost completely featureless faces[1], conjured by witches to defend the Inconsolable Wood from intruders, and are specifically designed to take orders from any witch.

In Stand Still, Stay Silent, trolls are former humans who got infected by a plague. Now they look like blobs of mutated body parts that attack the main characters even as their last shreds of human consciousness beg for help. They seem to be vulnerable to fire, just like in Scandinavian mythology.

In Swiftriver, trolls are blue skinned, hairy, and sport horns. They tend to be over six feet tall (not counting their horns) and have two rows of teeth. They are always of Norse or Scandinavian heritage and can project a glamour to make them appear human.

In Tales of the Questor, Trolls are a type of toadstool, which live centuries, can eat nearly anything, and are capable of turning the average human warrior into a small red streak across the ground. They're usually too stupid to be good or evil, but they do tend to make good guards for the treasures of bad people.

Frederik KT Andersson's trolls suffer from "thick blood": pure trolls will degenerate into slavering monsters in only a few generations. Thus they try to breed with humans every now and then.

Trolls have made cameo appearances on Gaia Online in various promo art, even having special troll items released. As Gaia relies a lot on internet culture for inspiration, Gaian Trolls are a bizarre combination of the bridge dwelling troll, and the internet kind.

The online Spec Evo project A Scientific Fantasy trolls are descended from the extinct primate Gigantopithecus, many different species are members of the Troll family: Satyrs, Minotaurs, Alpine Hunchbacks, Yetis and Sasquatches. Most species of Troll are semi-intelligent and Alpine Hunchbacks in particular will be found working in factories in what can essentially be called legalised slave labour.

Trolls in Tales from My D&D Campaign are mostly standard D&D trolls, but as a result of some meddling by a dark god, they can eventually regrow their bodies from nothing more than their jawbone, even if they were killed by fire or acid. Since the jawbone itself cannot be destroyed by any known force, this makes trolls true immortals.

Trolls in Tales of MU are said to have been made by the gods out of leftovers, as they come in many different heights, limb arrangements, and numbers of heads.

The Amazing World of Gumball once featured a troll who (as a joke on internet trolling) derived all his strength from insulting people and getting them upset. Unlike the Wander Over Yonder example below, this troll also ate the people.

Barbie & The Diamond Castle featured a troll that looked just like a short, bald guy that happened to have greenish-brown skin, carried a scimitar, and threatened to eat anyone who couldn't answer his riddle.

The Trolls from The World of David the Gnome are based on the Scandinavian troll myths: hairy, ugly, man-sized creatures who turn to stone in sunlight, and are extremely greedy.

On Goldie & Bear, the troll is a cranky toddler equivalent who throws a tantrum and blocks the bridge because he was woken up from his nap. Fortunately, Bear's Mama Bear is a master troll tamer and knows that the troll can be dealt with by using a firm tone, giving him a blankie and teddy bear, and redirecting him back below the bridge to curl up to finish his nap. Alternatively, giving him a balloon will also work, if you extract a promise from him to go back and finish the nap in exchange for it.

In The Little Troll Prince trolls are small, ugly underground dwelling and Always Chaotic Evil but the title character gains redemption and is turned into a gnome.

Mustakrakish the Lake Troll from Metalocalypse is several stories tall with red skin, gangly limbs, claws, and fangs. It appears to hate (or enjoy destroying) modern technology, or at least high-tension electrical lines, and its only weaknesses seem to be lullabies (which put it to sleep in the bottom of a lake) and sharp objects lodged in its throat. And it's summoned with The Power of Rock.

Trolls in Mike the Knight are friendly, purple, vaguely monstrous humanoids, who live in small family groups in caves. The trolls seen in the series are Mike's friend Trollee and his parents, Ma and Pa Troll.

The Grundles in My Little Pony are themselves very diverse in appearance. All of them are varying degrees of Ugly Cute and they all have very sweet personalities. A few other kinds of trolls appear in the series (such as Niblik from "The Magic Coins"), and pretty much follow the Grundles' standard.

Homer, Bart, and a few others group write a children's novel about orphan troll twins who attend a magical school under the Brooklyn Bridge called Underbridge Academy.

The rather odd episode "Saddlesore Galactica" has Homer become a jockey, only to discover that all the other jockeys are inhuman creatures that have various traits of elves and leprechauns, except that they are also evil and cannibalistic. Homer refers to them as "murderous trolls."

Trolls from Slugterra are blue skinned, large, and renowned for their engineering skills.

The trolls in Sofia the First are a race of benevolent but poor-reputationed small, green, hairy apes with pointy ears who live underground, like to make music with their clubs, and sometimes come outside to look at the stars. They are smart, friendly, love music and were banned from the castle due to a simple, knee-jerk misunderstanding. The show being what it is, it's up to Sofia to fix this mistake and introduce the trolls to polite society.

One of the best variations we've found are the Stone Protectors. They were a toy line and short-lived cartoon series released on the heels of the troll doll revival in the mid-90s. These trolls were a literal Five-Man Band who protected the Stones of Power from an evil troll using The Power of Rock.

Trolls from Trollhunters are the most common breed of magical creature present in the series. They come in various shapes and sizes throughout the series, commonly seen for their underbite, excessive body-hair, horns and large noses. Should they touch sun-light, their bodies turn to stone (with a few exceptions like the half-breed Changelings, and the flying Stalkling).

We can only assume that The TroubleMakers from Team Umizoomi are these creatures.

Trolls in Ugly Americans are big, green, not very bright, live under bridges and really, REALLY like telling riddles. There's some sexual dimorphism evident. Males have long noses, jutting tusks and are bald, females have snub noses, blunt tusks and hair (or they get nose jobs, file down their tusks and wear wigs).

On Uncle Grandpa, the troll has a monstrous appearance and the weakness of turning to stone. It also harasses people anonymously over the Internet.

Wander over Yonder: In "The Troll", Wander and Sylvia are recruited to help the Baa-hallans defend their food stores from a troll. The troll starts out as an ugly little humanoid, but as he angers Sylvia and the Baa-hallans with his insults he gets bigger, stronger, and uglier. However, Wander realizes the source of the monster's power and convinces everyone to stop fighting and Just Ignore It, causing the troll to shrink back to its original, harmless size.

Real Life

The basis of elf and troll tales may be on Homo neanderthalensis - the extinct Neanderthal human, which occupied the Northern Europe much of the prehistorical era, only finally succumbing at the end of the Ice Age. Homo neanderthalensis was very robust, strong and as intelligent as Homo sapiens, but different enough to be perceived as a different species. The folk tales tell of trolls and men interbreeding, and such interbreeding indeed did happen historically: the European DNA has approxximately 5% Homo neanderhalensis DNA, and it is assumed the red-hairedness gene is Homo neanderthalensis legacy.

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